Ibra's Agent Angers Barcelona

byBrian HallonAugust 27, 2010

Usually sports agents are known for calming their client down, this time it appears that Barcelona is accusing one of their star players’ agent of the opposite. Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s transfer status may fully depend on the behavior of his agent.

Mino Raiola, Zlatan’s agent, has made several personal remarks in the last few weeks about Barcelona’s manager Pep Guardiola and the successful club has now accused the agent of “disrupting relations“ between the player and his club and are reportedly considering cutting all ties with the athlete‘s representative.

Raiola recently launch a variety of a scathing attacks towards Pep suggesting that the Barcelona coach has become an “enemy” of his client’s and also suggesting that Pep had a “problem” with Ibrahimovic and also wasn’t as great a person away from the pitch as he is perceived to be on the sideline.

Ibra and Pep have been reported to be on different pages before in the past, but for an agent to suggest that his own client detests the man he is supposed to work for is not the brightest approach considering no transfer deal is a guarantee for the Swedish striker as of yet. And sure Ibra is probably not too pleased to be the third option on a team when he could be the first for 99% of the team’s in the world, but that is the risk of joining a giant like Barcelona.

Raiola, on the other hand, made several of these statements during press conferences in which his message was that Ibra might remain with his current club. To bring up such an issue when publicly announcing that your client may stay with that team makes no sense. If anything announce such things after the player has left, but using it as a tactic to attempt to have your player moved is unwise because it only becomes a red flag for every coach and owner in the world to consider when attempting to transfer for the star.

If Ibra is trying to heighten his value at the moment then the first thing he should do is remove the one person that is currently damaging his reputation. Ironically, Raiola is supposed to be the man that protects exactly this.